THE Australians won a very important toss and gave themselves a huge advantage by batting first in excellent batting conditions. Once they had gone past 300 India were always the underdog. It was just the amazing self belief of this team and its youth that kept the match going for as long as it did. ††††I had mentioned earlier that India were doing well to exploit the vulnerability of the Australian batting with Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds, the big impact players, out of form at the same time. ††††Well, that situation wasnít going to last long, was it? As it turned out all three of them fired in this game and thatís what happens when three big guns fire, they do a lot of damage. ††††Ricky Ponting finally found some rhythm in his batting. He wasnít quite at his best, I thought. But thatís how great a batsman he is. In that, he still managed to get a hundred quite easily at a strike rate of 93.23 and a hundred that was pretty much the decisive factor in the game. ††††Another problem that India have these days when they bat second on a good pitch, is that their most experienced batsman, who bats at such an influential position in the batting order, becomes almost redundant. ††††Here is why. In the last 51 One-day internationals, Tendulkarís batting average when he bats first is 62.10 in 24 innings. In contrast when he bats second, itís 26.00 in 27 innings. ††††After a brilliant Test series, itís not so much his form in this One-day series that is the concern but his contribution, at that crucial opening position when India is set bigger targets to chase. ††††If you look at it, itís a simple batting issue that the maestro along with the team management should professionally address. ††††But with Tendulkar, itís like the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. ††††Australia won the match and Brett Lee was right, India is a tough team for Australia to beat these days. TCM